Birthday Surprise

This weekend was one of the long-awaited events I have not hitherto been able to blog about, namely: Pocket of Bolts father and sister, who each live pretty far from Chicago, in different states from us and from each other, had contacted me about two months ago. They wanted to surprised PoB by flying in for his birthday, and wanted to know if I thought it would be all right. It was not a hard decision to make: of course one says yes. The consequence of saying no if I should have said yes are so much worse than the consequences of saying yes if I should have said no--obviously. But the whole thing cost me a certain amount of mental anguish, believe it or not. I'm not one for surprise parties, either getting or giving them. And lying to my husband, even if it's mostly by omission, does not come easily.

In the event, however, the whole thing worked out so well and smoothly that he was a bit disturbed at how effectively "sneaky" I was. I attribute our success merely to the fact that he is not of a suspicious nature, and we had some good luck. Friday night I lured him into a nearby pub. The surprise guests came in and sneaked up behind him. The look of pure astonishment on his face was quite comical, and for a moment I almost appreciated why people like to plan surprise parties. I still think, though, that he might have enjoyed it more if he could have had longer to look forward to it.

On his actual birthday, Saturday, we had brunch at Ann Sather, and then the three of them went off to see the sights. I stayed home to work and also made a cake. For dinner we went to a nice tapas place, which was delicious, and came back to our place for cake (so many candles!) and drinking and chatting. The whole evening went really well, I thought.

This is a picture of the Pocket of Bolts family having a characteristically lazy and mellow Sunday morning. I was madly translating some medieval poems for a meeting I had later in the afternoon. When the three of them get together I am definitely the odd one out, but I don't mind it. It is fun to see PoB amidst his nearest relations. It was fun to do something unusual for the birthday weekend.

PoB's dad left Sunday afternoon, and his sister stayed on another day. They'd been in a hotel but his sister spent Sunday night with us. That was really nice. PoB is very close to his sister, and they don't have nearly enough chances to really talk. We all had dinner together and then I went into the study to do some writing and the two of them talked. I could hear the edges of their conversation, but I mostly stayed in the study and did my own thing. Brothers and sisters should have some alone time when they see each other so rarely--I think.